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3232Donald McRae: The art of the interviewhttps://sportsgazette.co.uk/donald-mcrae-the-art-of-the-interview/
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 17:31:57 +0000https://sportsgazette.co.uk/?p=17581“First and foremost, you have to make the story about the person you’re interviewing,” said Donald McRae, the multiple award winning author and Guardian journalist renowned for his investigative interviews with famous athletes.

We’re sitting in a trendy coffee shop near the newspaper’s office in central London where one of the industry’s best willingly shares priceless information on a career spanning 35 years. “If you can learn four or five things about the person that you didn’t know before then you’ve done your job.”

The author of eleven books, the latest, In Sunshine Or In Shadow: How Boxing Brought Hope in the Troubles, McRae masterfully lifts the veil on the glitzy world of sport and shines a light on the real-life humans who populate its bright stages.

Born near the outskirts of Johannesburg in apartheid South Africa, McRae grew up with an interest in the intersecting lines between sports and politics. “I remember when Mohammad Ali fought George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire [now the Democratic Republic of the Congo] in 1974,” he said.

“My Afrikaans teachers were so passionate about Ali. ‘He’s not like our blacks’, they’d say. That was fascinating to me and cultivated a curiosity in me. I couldn’t square that. My political consciousness was accelerated by sport.”

After graduating, McRae worked as a school teacher in Soweto, the army came knocking, just as it did for all white abled bodied men when the country was divided along strict racial lines. His contentious objections meant he hightailed it to London to forge a new path.

He wrote about heart transplants and trial lawyers and drug dealers. His debut book, Nothing Personal, published in 1992, explored the dangerous and diverse world of London’s sex trade. He found himself drawn to the margins, speaking to people confined to the fringes of civil society. It was here he began laying the foundations for his seminal book on boxing, Dark Trade (1994), after spending time with Mike Tyson, Chris Eubank and Oscar De La Hoya.

“Boxing is life and death, people get killed, the aim is to hurt someone,” McRae said, explaining why this primal sport captivates his imagination more than any other. “It’s also a sport that welcomes outsiders, strange as that may seem. Even with a guy like Tyson at his most notorious and deadly, you could walk in the gym and ask for an interview. Of course there’d be bodyguards, but the realness of the sport allows for that interaction.”

McRae continued: “It’s a sport that demands honesty. There is something naked about the act of two men in a ring with nothing but their fists and bodies. They lie to themselves and two others when puffing their chests out but boxers are almost always the most honest when I interview them about their vulnerabilities or insecurities.”

This might have something to do with McRae himself. He is softly spoken and hunches over just enough that he presents as a man eager to listen. Even when talking to a rookie like me he asks questions and welcomes contrary opinion. He has a natural humility that immediately puts you at ease.

This is what former cricket Robin Smith must have felt when he opened up to McRae about his suicidal thoughts. Or Thams Bjorn, the great tennis player, when he spoke about depression. Or Robbie Rogers and his coming out despite plying his trade in the homophobic world of professional football.

“The art of the a good interview is to listen,” McRae explained. “Of course you go in with an idea of how you want to shape the conversation but you have to be malleable to the person’s emotional shifts. Often they want to talk about a particular issue, and their agent will contact me because they know about my body of work, but often we’re chatting about sensitive subjects and that can be difficult. You have to listen and be sensitive but also ready to explore an angle that you might not have anticipated.”

This does not come as easy to McRae as his work would suggest. “I’m definitely a better writer than I am an interviewer,” he said “They are two clearly distinct crafts. It’s important to recognise them as separate.”

Sometimes McRae will get an email or a text from a disgruntled agent unhappy with the way a piece has panned out. Sometimes the athlete will contact him directly, bemoaning a particular quote taken out of context or misconstrued by a trigger happy fanbase on social media.

Though there are people McRae interviews that he does not like personally, either because of polarising political or social views or simply a clash of personalities, writing a disparaging piece is never the aim.

“I see myself as an author first and foremost,” McRae said. “But I am also a journalist. As a journalist you are going to offend people. If I don’t offend someone at least once a year then I’m not doing my job as a journalist. I’d say over the years I’ve seriously pissed off about 10-16 people. But I don’t enjoy doing so.”

He won’t go into details, on the record at least, but does confess to still feeling guilt and hurt when someone does feel particularly aggrieved. But he sleeps easy at night knowing that the piece you read in the paper is an accurate portrayal of the subject’s character.

“It sounds obvious but you have to let the quotes speak for themselves. It’s a cliche but people will hang themselves with their own words so I don’t need to have an agenda. Sometimes I get told that I made someone seem so nice, which I’m not out to do either, but if I spend an hour with someone they will tend to show their best side. I just give them a platform. If that person is insecure or nervous or overtly confident or has an axe to grind then that will come out. Agents often what the most sanitised version of their client but I try and explain to them to allow their humanity to shine through.”

McRae takes a look at his watch and realises he has to run off. He has an interview with Liverpool’s Dutch defender Virgil van Dijk to prepare for ahead of this year’s Champions League Final.

“I still get nervous before big interviews,” McRae said as he slips on his coat. This contrasts the headline from the van Dijk piece that stated, “I’m never nervous. If you’re nervous, you limit your quality.” This does not resonate with McRae.

“The nerves show I still care,” McRae said despite having conducted, by his count, over 2,500 interviews. “I love what I do. It is such a privileged position I have. The day you think you’re good is the day you’re done. The art of the interview is rooted in humility.”

Featured image: Donald McRae

]]>Riding into Kabul after the fall of the Taliban and facing Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath in the nets: Phil Mackie on his 26 years at the BBChttps://sportsgazette.co.uk/phil-mackie-on-26-years-at-the-bbc-and-40-years-of-worcestershire-club-cricket/
Sun, 16 Jun 2019 23:49:31 +0000https://sportsgazette.co.uk/?p=17566Phil Mackie has worked for the BBC since 1993, and since 1998 has been a network TV, radio and online reporter for BBC news, covering stories such as Fred & Rose West and the Cromwell Street murders, being in Kabul when the Taliban fell, and the Ben Stokes affray case.

He has managed to balance his BBC career with a 40 year stint playing for Worcester’s Old Vigornians CC, as a right-arm seamer, middle order batsman, and also often as captain.

SG: How did you first get into journalism?

PM: I was travelling, basically through University I paid my way by working in restaurants, and ended up managing a few restaurants in London. It was great fun, but I saw no future in it and I’d also got a degree in history, and I felt intellectually unchallenged. So I went travelling for a year, and during that time I thought what would I like to do.

When I came back I went and worked at BBC Hereford & Worcester for free for a month, and in those days you could just turn up and do that, and then they gave me some paid work which kept me going. I was working in a pub at the same time. Then as a result of that I got on the BBC local radio training scheme, which got me into local radio initially, and then through to where I am now. I quickly gave up on the sports journalism, although I have done sports news, because the same year that I was graduating from my training scheme they gave Aggers the cricket correspondent job, and Gary Lineker the football job, and it became clear that you needed to have been a professional sportsman and have reached the top of that profession.

SG: What have been the biggest changes in the media since you started?

PM: Technology is the biggest one, and obviously the diversifying from a handful of channels and radio networks to many more, and the digital revolution with online platforms coming in too, and the fact that the money has sort of dried up. There’s been a tightening of budgets across the media, and challenges from online platforms as well, and technology has changed the way we consume everything.

SG: What’s been the most interesting story you’ve covered?

PM: I don’t think there’s anything I could really single out, there have been so many different stories over such a long career. Criminal trials like Fred & Rose West when I was at Radio Gloucestershire, Gary Glitter when I was in Bristol, and I did the Ben Stokes case last year. I do a lot of court work, and a lot of terrorist cases as well, some big plots from ten to five years ago, a lot of them emanated from the West Midlands.

The murders committed by the Wests at their house in Cromwell Street in Gloucester was one of the big stories Phil Mackie covered early on in his BBC career

Probably the most memorable for me was being in Kabul just after the Taliban fell in 2001. I was sent over there for 5 Live, and it was quite an effort to get into Afghanistan in those days, it wasn’t straightforward.

It was a crazy journey where I also had to carry $5000 in cash in for the BBC team to sustain them, so I had it secreted about my person as we landed at Bagram, and had to get through a Northern Alliance checkpoint to get into Kabul. The two and a half weeks there were incredibly memorable. That’s away from my day job really but there’s plenty of good stories I’ve covered in the Midlands and the West of England and down in London as well.

SG: Do you think people’s attitude towards the BBC has changed in recent years? Are people more cynical and perhaps less trustworthy of the BBC than they were?

PM: The BBC always comes up as very trustworthy compared to other news organisations, but I think that you’d probably find some statistics somewhere that show that we’re regarded with less esteem than we were, largely because of the anti-mainstream media and these fake news sites that pop up.

SG: Do you still get the same adrenaline rush from doing live reporting as you did when you started?

PM: I was a lot more nervous when I started, and I’m a little more relaxed now. It can be stressful obviously. When I first became a network reporter on 5 Live I was only working for them so that was a maximum of two or three live reports in a day. Now I work for everybody, I can hit 20 odd live reports in a day for different outlets and different audiences in different styles, so you have to script a lot of that, and that is really stressful.

SG: You spent some time in the USA recently, what do you think the USA’s media could learn from the UK’s, and vice-versa?

PM: Certainly vice-versa they could learn a lot! Their TV news reports were fairly facile, they’re slightly too obsessed with Donald Trump, so there’s not much else that gets on. So the network news there’s essentially a half hour programme of which 12 minutes is ads, and there’s very little news and 90% of it is about Trump and politics and they don’t really get out of the Washington bubble. They’re far worse I think than Britain is with the Westminster bubble, I think we do get out and about. They could learn a lot from the UK.

SG: Also their coverage of sport, did you watch much sport over there in person or on TV?

PM: Yeah we went to a couple of baseball games in April, we went to see the Tigers play in Detroit and we loved it, really loved it. But watching baseball on TV is really boring, you get a much better sense of fun at the match. Obviously I’m not an expert on baseball, but you could work out what was going on whereas if you follow the commentators on MLB on the TV there it’s hard to fathom out what they’re talking about a lot of the time, there’s so much lost in the jargon of the game.

SG: Moving on to your cricket career, how much of a challenge is it still to fit in playing cricket around work?

PM: Or work around cricket! I don’t play as many games as I used to, up until three or four years ago I would have played 25-30 games a year, maybe 30 if there wasn’t much rain and it was a dry Summer. Now I would play 20 max, probably fewer than 20 in a wet season. That’s because my body can’t do it anymore really.

Netting with the 2003 World Cup winning Australians in South Africa was a particular highlight of Phil’s cricketing career

SG: Have there been any particular mad rushes back from an assignment to a match or vice-versa?

PM: The first game I played this season, it was our last day in America the day before so I flew back overnight, we landed at Heathrow at 6 in the morning, and at 10 in the morning I was preparing the ground at Hawford (near Worcester), that was for the 1sts, and I ended up playing that day for the 2nds at Kidderminster. I hadn’t slept but we were one short and I was here so I thought I might as well play.

I was absolutely knackered and it was that really cold day, I had ‘Skins’ on under my shirt, three jumpers on and I felt like putting my hoody on top of that, and I hadn’t slept for two days. And it was gloomy and grey but we had a really good game actually, it went to the last over.

SG: What’s been the highlight of your cricket career?

PM: A couple I’d pick out, there was a game which was my 500th game, where our season was going horribly wrong, the 1sts and the 2nds were doing terribly, it looked like we would get relegated from the old Worcestershire League Division 3, and I went and played at Alvechurch & Hopwood (near Birmingham). I got a couple of wickets, they got 220 odd, we were about 100-7 when I came in, but with a bit of support from the tail end I got about 60* and we won the match in the last over. It was a great, great moment. I ended up playing for the 1sts for the rest of that season and scored a lot of runs, bowled well, took some catches, and we stayed up and the next season we were promoted to Division 2 where we stayed for a couple of years.

Also 2003 at the Cricket World Cup I was sent to cover it from the fans’ perspective. The day before England played Australia at Port Elizabeth, England were in very grumpy mood under Nasser, and no press were allowed. The Aussies didn’t even have a warm-up, they just invited the press to have a net session.

In the fast net were Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie, Andy Bichel, and Andrew Symonds who was bowling bumpers at you, and the slow net was Brad Hogg and Nathan Hauritz. It was great fun, I got a bruised hand off Brett Lee, I hit Glenn McGrath back past him out of the net, and I’ve got a picture of me with the fast bowlers as a result of that. It was Australia when they were the best team in the world by a long way.

SG: You mentioned the Ben Stokes case, did that present any particular challenges covering it?

PM: It did because it was really, really busy, it was a really complex case, and it’s one of those ones where you’ve just got to constantly keep refreshing your copy. Some trials you get the opening and then you turn up at the end to see what the verdict is. This trial all of the evidence was critical and you wanted to hear what was happening, so we were there for four days and it was busy every day. Also you had not just news correspondents like me but all the cricket writers were there too. It was a different and a very complicated and interesting case.

SG: What would be your best piece of advice for any aspiring journalist?

PM: Be enthusiastic, be nice to people, don’t say no to anything at the beginning, always say yes, and be willing to learn, and willing to try things out. I think that’s probably got me through, my willingness to adapt has been one of the things that has kept me going.

]]>Is June 24 going to be a stop for the Bombastic Olympics?https://sportsgazette.co.uk/is-june-24-going-to-be-a-stop-for-the-bombastic-olympics/
Sun, 16 Jun 2019 19:42:57 +0000https://sportsgazette.co.uk/?p=16537‘The Olympics are too big and too expensive for the western democracies to host,’ argued Chappelet on the Play the Game forum already in 2012. This is a statement we still hear often nowadays. And yes, unfortunately it is true. The International Olympic Committee is struggling to find host cities for the future events because western countries are not willing to host big sporting events any more.

The very recent example of a democratic state that cancelled the party came in November 2018 when Calgary voted against continuing to bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. There are only two more candidates bidding for these 2026 Games.

Even more sports mega-events are organised outside the western democracies. This is not a surprise, after the emerging states have gained the political and economic power to host these giant happenings. The Olympic Games are not the only ones that have been affected – The FIFA World Cups are moving away as well.

The 2014 Olympics in Sochi, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, 2022 in Beijing. The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and the 2022 in Qatar. Just to mention a few.

To understand what is happening we have to go a way back to the past. The Olympic Movement was established in 1896 and it was also the time when the whole sport started to organise. All the big sports organisations were founded at this time.

From those days, sports mega-events have grown dramatically and today, these capture an enormous and worldwide media attention. The emerging states want to utilise this visibility. Through the media attention, they use sport as a political weapon to re-brand their state’s image. During the events these hosts are the centre of the attention for more than a half of the world’s population and it is a perfect momentum for the countries to showcase their state.

The rising countries want to demonstrate their power and ability to organise these bombastic events. This phenomenon is called soft power and it is the main reason for developing countries to organise sports events. At the same time, western countries are losing their interest towards these events.

This mix of sports and politics is not new. It is even said that the very first instinct of the Olympics was political. All the way from the beginning to these days, politics have been a part of the Olympic Movement.

China is a good example of a heavy user of politics to achieve other objectives. Already in 1950s, China started to use sports to achieve political goals, and it hasn’t stopped yet. For instance, in the 1970s, China used sport to brand the state as a so-called ping-pong diplomacy. Back then, sport was a bilateral diplomatic tool, but nowadays events attract global attention through the globalised media. China has invested enormously not only into hosting mega- events but into sporting performance as well. Right at this moment, China is training its future skiing stars in northern Finland, in order to prepare them to be set for the 2022 home Games.

Why is the June 24th so important for the future of the Olympic movement? On that day, the International Olympic Committee will choose the host for the 2026 Winter Games.

There are only two candidates left in the bidding game: Sweden and Italy.

No matter which of these two countries will win, there will be a huge revolution in the world of sport: the price tag for these two bids is only a scarcity of the past Games. The budget of possible Swedish Games would be ‘only’ $1,4 billion. Actually, you can leave those quotation marks out when you check the budgets for a few previous Games. Just as a comparison, the budget for the Sochi 2014 Games was $51 billion.

What has happened? The International Olympic Committee started to fear that the western countries would lose their interest in organising and financing these Games in case those are way too big and way too expensive to host. Also, the shift to the emerging and non-democratic states has decreased the western countries’ willingness to host these parties. The IOC was forced to launch Agenda 2020.

‘Olympic Agenda 2020 is the strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement,’ argues the IOC. And adds that ‘changes to the candidature procedure, with a new philosophy to invite potential candidate cities to present a project that fits their sporting, economic, social and environmental long-term planning needs.’ The aim is to reduce costs especially for bidding.

Before one of these two democratic candidates, either Sweden or Italy, can set the level for a new normal, we’ll see at least two pretentious events, in terms of money: The Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022 followed by the FIFA World Cup later the same year to be hosted in Qatar with an estimated budget of $200 billion.

The IOC has been involved in several crises of trust and Agenda 2020 is a million-pound chance for the organisation to clean its reputation and bring back the positive status for the Olympics that they deserve.

]]>Daniel Jarvis: the St Mary’s student with World Championship dreamshttps://sportsgazette.co.uk/daniel-jarvis-the-st-marys-student-with-world-championship-dreams/
Sun, 16 Jun 2019 15:45:01 +0000https://sportsgazette.co.uk/?p=17499The next 18 months are important for any athlete with
aspirations of competing at the upcoming World Athletics Championships, and
next year’s Olympic Games beyond that.

But for St Mary’s University student and distance runner
Daniel Jarvis, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

The 23-year-old has just finished the penultimate year of
his Business Management degree and is in the hunt for Team GB selection as he
attempts to make the gruelling step up from junior to senior athletics.

Jarvis has represented his country twice on the European stage as an under-23 – at the track championships in the 3,000m steeplechase in Bydgoszcz in July 2017, and at the cross country championships in Samorin later the same year.

But the Bedford and County runner admits the step up is
largely make-or-break, and he is doing everything possible to carve out a long-term
career in the sport.

He said: “This is a big year for me as I go into the last
year of my degree. I’m at the point now where I’m transitioning from being a
junior going to the European Championships, to trying to make my name as a
senior athlete on Great Britain teams.

“I want to make the World Championships squad in September
and October, and then after that I want to make the team for the European Cross
Country Championships later on in December.

“At senior level, there’s a lot more depth in terms of the
standard and the qualifying times on the track are a lot harder to achieve.

“The transition out of university can be very cut throat if
you’re not at a level where you can fund the lifestyle and are able to live,
train and compete.

“That’s where people can fall out of the sport and it’s
something I think about a lot – there are times when I don’t want to miss
training and when I do need to be really consistent.”

Jarvis is hoping to qualify for the World Championships and compete among the sport’s elite in Doha.

To qualify for the World Championships in Doha, Jarvis must
run the standard of 8:29 in the 3,000m steeplechase and finish in the top two
at the British Championships in August.

In cross country, a top-four finish in a trial race in
Liverpool later in the year would seal his spot in the squad for the European Championships
in Lisbon.

Ahead of his final year at St Mary’s, Jarvis identifies the
sacrifices he has had to make to maximise his chances of success, and he is
confident he can accomplish his targets.

“If you don’t get the race right on the day that can be it
for you for that championship and for that year. It’s one of the hard things
about the sport,” he said.

“But I’ve got a strong belief in what my coach (Mick Woods) sets
me in training. Likewise it’s about me being committed to the training and the
lifestyle of being an athlete.

“I’ve been at university for three years and I’ve had to
balance working, training and my degree.

“There are quite a lot of social aspects you have to drop –
you’re not able to go out partying like the standard student.

“You’ve got to stay a lot more committed to your running and
your studies and the rest and recovery in between is what keeps you going.

“I’m only 10 seconds off the
standard for the worlds team, which is only just over a second a lap.

“In a normal week I’m running
seven days out of the seven and just getting my head down.”

Jarvis has had to sacrifice a typical student lifestyle in order to balance work, training and his university commitments.

With little over two months until
the British Championships in Birmingham, Jarvis is in full training mode and
recently spent three and a half weeks on an intensive camp in Portugal.

Despite suffering from an Achilles
problem in recent weeks, the two-time Windsor half marathon champion insists he
is in good shape ahead of such a crucial period.

He said: “I’ve had a little
niggle, but I’ve been to see the physio quite a few times and I’m back racing
at the British Milers Club Grand Prix in Watford on June 29.

“I was running between 90 and 100
miles a week and I have had some of the best training for a long time.

“In terms of taking my running to
the next level and being able to do it as a full-time job, it’s something that
is quite key so we’ll just see how it goes.”

Getting junior players into golf at club level is one thing,
but encouraging them to stick with it into adulthood is entirely another.

While both the men’s and women’s professional fields
currently showcase an abundance of talent, bereft of the one-man or one-woman
dominance of years past, the technical and repetitive side of junior coaching
is holding back the sport’s popularity with youngsters.

Oli Tucker, resident PGA professional at Horton Park Golf
Club, is recognised by US Kids Golf as one of the top junior coaches in the
country, largely due to his unique coaching style, and he is setting a
precedent for young players to view the game differently.

Oli explains how his sporting background has helped him
tailor his coaching for juniors.

“When I first looked into what was going on in junior golf
it seemed very boring and very technical”, he says.

“Looking at other sports like football, sessions would be
very loud, very energetic and it was only golf that were doing it quite old
school – it was slow and there was a lot of focus around gripping the club
which didn’t really need to happen.

“Coming from outside of golf I was lucky enough not to
follow that mould and I could do my own thing and make it a bit more
interesting and based around movement skills. This also helps to get juniors
better prepared for whatever sport they want to take up.”

With golf’s technical side the subject of much debate, Oli
feels it is important for the young juniors to let that side go, and focus on
their coordination by creating challenges or games.

“A lot can be done in golf to increase its playability”, he
notes.

“The excitement factor of making the hole bigger has been
talked about and a lot of clubs believe it’s the right thing to do –
unfortunately no one is doing anything about it.

“Similarly with shorter tee boxes – the current junior tees
are not short enough when they can only
hit the ball a certain distance. The same problem arises for the seniors off
the back tees.”

For Oli, juniors can benefit from having the freedom to play
and work out their own swing and style.

Certainly, with the wide and wonderful variety of golf
swings in the professional game – Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson’s techniques
spring to mind – there is no correct blueprint to sit down and replicate.

With this in mind, Oli explains that parents can quite easily prove a barrier in their child’s development.

“Often parents need to let the kids play – let them get on
with it! There is so much going on in kids’ heads already so it’s best to keep
these thoughts limited.

“If we’re working with an elite junior, they will only have
one or maybe two things to work on at a time concerning either their swing or
pre-shot routine.

“What is so frustrating is seeing parents translate lessons
from their own game onto their child’s technique – it can be incredibly
confusing.”

There is certainly truth in the consensus that the game of
golf is stubborn in keeping its traditional ways.

Certainly, when it comes to encouraging juniors into the
game, there must be a considered move away from the technical and towards pure
enjoyment.

If moving tee boxes and creating different hole sizes can
help this, why not try it?

]]>Hurdling disappointment – James Williams on his 850 mile world record attempthttps://sportsgazette.co.uk/hurdling-disappointment-james-williams-on-his-850-mile-world-record-attempt/
Fri, 14 Jun 2019 23:46:35 +0000https://sportsgazette.co.uk/?p=17452James Williams’ attempted world record run from Land’s End to John o’Groats (‘LEJOG’) sadly ended just north of Preston on May 30.

The ultra-runner, who was hoping to run 850 miles over the
course of 9 days, retired through exhaustion on day five of his extraordinary
challenge.

The result was naturally a great disappointment for James,
his support team and friends and family – having made countless sacrifices to
train and plan for the event over the course of 18 months.

Yet despite not crossing the finish line in Scotland, James is
taking away the lessons and multitude of positives that derive from an
experience that is so difficult to prepare for.

“There were some incredible highs during the attempt”, he
reflected.

“I enjoyed it all, despite some very big lows and dark
moments, and I realised that you can make your body, and mind, do some pretty
amazing things when you keep on pushing.

James felt calm and confident before setting off from Land’s End

“I ran 377 miles in four days, which is far more than I have
ever run before. Knowing that I can push through those incredibly tough moments
will help me in the future.”

In hindsight, James believes that his lack of experience in
running long distances for consecutive days was a major reason for his
exhaustion.

“I know this was a strong performance, especially compared
to my previous experience.

“Ultimately, the biggest reason for me not achieving my main
goal was my lack of experience in multi-day ultra events.

“This was something I was aware of going in to the attempt,
but I thought my significant training, racing and preparation would overcome
it.”

Mimi Anderson, James’ running coach and holder of the
women’s record for the challenge, explained the thought process behind his
training schedule in the months preceding the event.

“We’d been concentrating on his 100 mile races that he had
been doing”, she said.

“Once those were out of the way, we started to increase his
mileage, trying to get James’ body used to long distances day after day after
day.

“Ultimately, we wanted it to become natural for him to just
run 30 miles or 50 miles, but crucially to do it on consecutive days.”

With James setting off on May 25 2019, Anderson explained
how Christmas became a key turning point in his routine.

“After Christmas the big mileage really started”, she said.

“James had several training weekends with his crew, the
longest of which involved running 80 miles on both a Saturday and Sunday in and
out of London.”

James assesses his options with his crew in the early hours of day 5

Despite the obvious difficulties he faced during the
challenge itself, James felt very comfortable with his preparation leading into
the event.

He said: “At Lands End I was confident and calm. Even though
I knew how tough this was going to be, it was tougher than anything I have imagined.

“After four days I was pretty much on track for the record,
but I woke up on day 5 with very little energy.”

The decision for James to withdraw from the attempt was a
hugely difficult and emotional one for the entire team.

James remains comfortable with the choice he and his team
made to stop, despite feeling that he could have carried on a little further.

“I may have decided to withdraw slightly early and I could
have trudged on for a few more miles”, he said.

“But by withdrawing when I did, I have avoided damaging my
body and mind in the long term.”

James’ attempt may have been centred around his goal to
break the world record, but he was also raising money for charity and hoping to
inspire others to set huge and ambitious goals of their own.

In the latter two objectives, he overwhelmingly succeeded,
and James has now raised almost £5,000 for Hope for Children.

Ultimately, James wants to show others that it is ok to fail
– that it is so often the first step on a journey to bigger and better things.

After a well-earned period of recovery, James looks to the
future knowing that this will be the case for him.

Having made the national finals in March for the third year
running, they finished as runners up in this year’s competition, narrowly
losing out to Portsmouth in a tense final.

The match was played in front of a raucous crowd that
numbered well over 100, and indoor cricket is on the rise in popularity –
finding a real niche in the often weather-affected university cricket calendar.

But what makes indoor cricket attractive, and how can young
cricketers develop from the differing format?

St Mary’s first team players discuss the success of their 2019 campaign

St Mary’s first team captain Conor Fulton explains that the
tense atmosphere created in the indoor arena heaps pressure on the players.

“Playing in front of over 100 people at this level is
certainly one of the biggest crowds university cricketers will have played in
front of”, he points out.

“It makes a lot of people relish the occasion and play
better, but plenty of players will panic and really struggle to perform.

“People tend to crumble, especially with the heckling from
the crowds and the noise created by the supporters in the hall – it’s a good
learning experience, especially for the bowlers.”

Indeed, indoor cricket has taken on the moniker of being a
batsman’s game. With such a consistent playing surface and a limited number of
fielders, Conor tells us that life can be hard for bowlers and their captains.

“Teams that try and hit straight down the ground to the back
wall, searching for boundaries, are often the easiest players to cater for as
you can set two men back for protection”, he explains.

“However, as soon as we played better teams like Portsmouth
in the final, who were very good at using their wrists and placing the ball
into all four corners of the hall, it felt like you were consistently two or
three fielders short out there – it’s so frustrating as a captain.

“Also, with three runs for wides and plenty of gaps in the
field, bowlers are limited in their capacity to change the game. If a batsman
plays well, he’s always in control.”

Yet despite this element of bias, the indoor experience
offers players the chance to develop skills that they can carry forward to the
traditional outdoor game.

St Mary’s on their way to the National Finals in 2018

For batsmen, their shot placement and running between the
wickets is consistently tested.

“They talk about being a 360 degree cricketer, having the
ability to hit the ball everywhere around the clockface”, Conor says.

“It’s such a vital skill that you can harness in the indoor
game, because accumulating runs relies on you moving the fielders out of
position and playing creative shots into the gaps.

“If you then go and play outdoors, where keeping your wicket
and scoring runs is much tougher, if you’ve got the ability to step across and
place the ball into, say, a gap at mid-wicket, it can really help keep the
scoring ticking and stop you getting bogged down.”

Likewise, bowlers get the opportunity to perfect their
variations – such as slower balls and cutters – which is a necessary skill to
implement on wickets that offer them little movement.

With indoor cricket on the rise in university sport, its
traditional role as a winter practice tool has now been rebranded into a very
competitive and nationalised format.

St. Mary’s will now look to make it four from four in their
bid to reach the national finals in 2020.

As the runners themselves eat up countless miles, pushing
their bodies to the brink of exhaustion to complete the most unfathomable of
challenges, the preparation and support that exists behind the scenes is often
secondary in interest and limelight.

Yet the quality and actions of an ultra-runner’s support
team can ultimately dictate success or failure for the athlete in question.

The goal of the athlete’s crew is to let them concentrate on
nothing but their running and their specific goals along their journey. This
can involve driving support vehicles, preparing those all important calories,
providing emotional support and solving a multitude of problems along the
route.

For multi-day and even multi-month events, the importance of
the slickness of this process cannot be understated.

She has helped athletes conquer the Spartathlon in Greece, run
the length of Ireland in a world record time and even attempt a coast-to-coast
conquest of America.

Her most recent crewing challenge was shepherding an
inexperienced team through the process of supporting James Williams, an
ultra-runner who was attempting to break the world record running from Lands
End to John o’Groats.

Here, Becky offers her most valuable tips for crewing
ultra-running events – a side of the sport that is rarely delved into.

Planning:

“Planning is the number one key”, Becky says.

“You are looking at a good couple of years planning and do
not underestimate the time it takes for some of these events. For many routes
it is important to do a recce and identify obstacles – success in these
challenges are often years in the making.”

“Concentrate on the important parts of planning – not just
the training – the logistics play a huge part!

Preparing yourself emotionally:

“In any event, don’t underestimate the before and after of
the challenge itself. Nobody ever thinks about what happens afterwards – they
concentrate on the race or the event.

“Depending on the outcome there’s two starkly different
emotions, and you must consider that when you are knackered you will then be
dealing with the feelings that come with success or falling short.

“Your recovery is then so vital when you’ve put your body
through that. In reality the middle part is one of the most straightforward
parts of it!”

Becky directs her crew at a scheduled stop

Know the sport:

“With my recent crewing work for James’ world record
attempt, I was teaching a new team to crew – it was fantastic and I loved it.

“However, what I felt was different was that the team had no
ultra-running experience – so that was an added difficulty in that I was not
only teaching to crew, but also trying to explain elements of how ultra-running
works.

“I could see what was happening to James and realised that
when he struggled for spells or became upset with the crew – it was normal for
those emotions and actions to be on display. To some of the team, especially
his close friends, it was a bit more of a shock to see him like that.

“Ultimately, as an ultra-runner, you want to run something,
but inside all you want to do is stop and have a sleep! You’re doing everything
you can do to fashion a stop, tie your shoelace, remove a stone from your shoe –
we’ve all as runners played those games and it’s the crew’s job to remove those
crutches.”

Somewhat predictably, the Great British Summer is keeping
the groundsmen busy as the tournament looks to gather some momentum after a
stop-start few weeks.

Of course, one of the leading storylines heading into the
summer was that of the wholesale changes made to the competition’s structure.
With the number of teams involved in the strikingly perpetual round-robin stage
reduced to 10 (down from 14 in 2015), the lack of opportunity for associate
nations has been a controversial bi-product.

The World Cup has oft provided a platform for smaller
cricketing nations to disprove their minnow moniker and make their mark on the
world stage.

Now, with the International Cricket Council (ICC) taking
steps to bypass blowout fixtures and ensure every game is competitive, the
associate nations have lost one of their most marked opportunities to prove
their worth and expand their yearly cricketing schedules.

If we are to truly see the development of associate sides,
such as Bangladesh’s rise since the 1990s, the ICC’s changes can only be seen
as a backwards step – a view affirmed by the great Sachin Tendulkar, who
recently and publicly bemoaned the tournament’s hindrance in globalizing the
game.

Scotland are one such nation who missed out at this World
Cup, narrowly losing out in qualifying to the West Indies.

For a more than capable side who stunningly beat World Cup
favourites England at the Grange just last year, it is a hammer blow.

Scotland are an associate nation with One Day International
(ODI) status since 2018, following their strong performance in World Cup
qualifying, yet their yearly schedule is positively barren in comparison to the
test-playing, full member nations of the ICC.

Given the severe lack of playing opportunities, there is
surely a ripple effect in failing to attract young talent to the national side.
Exactly how much motivation can young and exciting prospects have to pursue
cricket full time?

Oli Hairs is one batsman on the fringes of the Scotland
team, currently maximising his opportunities with Scotland A in order to gain
consideration for selection.

Oli Hairs goes to 100 for the Eastern Knights in Scotland

Having played five ODI’s for Scotland in 2010, this is his
second push for playing time with the first team.

“Looking back, I was way too young and didn’t really know my
game well enough at that level – I got a couple of twenties but that was really
about it,” he recalled.

“With an associate nation, there are not many games and
fixtures – there’s even less now because the Pro40 isn’t a thing and Scotland
have lost that domestic involvement with the county sides.

“Back when I played my first game, I was still at school.
Professional cricket was always the plan, but work and university ultimately
got in the way.”

Now in his late twenties, Oli now counts himself lucky to be
in a position where another shot at the Scotland side is not the be all and end
all.

“When I was 18, my mindset was very much ‘this is what I
have to do’. Whereas now, I’m just going
out and enjoying it – if it happens it happens, I’m just giving myself the
opportunity to get noticed and potentially selected.”

Given the further reduction of World Cup participants, Oli
believes the motivation for the associate nation prospects coming through the
ranks lies in franchise T20 cricket.

A new franchise tournament called The European T20,
involving two sides from each of Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands will
kick off at the end of August.

“With the World Cup being shortened, the number of teams
have dropped and it does really limit the cricket available to us,” Oli pointed
out.

“However, with the new European T20, the six sides will
participate in 30 games in 3 weeks before the finals – it will be similar in
set up to Australia’s Big Bash and the Indian Premier League.”

Each squad for this new competition will have nine homegrown
players as well as six overseas participants.

Oli sees the tournament as a great opportunity for homegrown
associate players to get their name out there.

“I know Brendon McCullum and Shane Watson are involved
already and a load of others – hopefully making your name alongside those stars
will open up a few doors.

“They have announced a ten-year deal so it’s pleasing to see
this franchise set up is in it for the long haul.

“All of it will be either televised or streamed online as
well, so if you do well there’s ample opportunity to get yourself noticed and
subsequently selected.”

The 2019 World Cup will last 46 days, three more than the
2015 edition, despite the reduced number of teams.

A traditionally long and at times exhaustive tournament has
always raised questions over the most appropriate competition structure to
implement.

Yet the sad truth of the matter is that we are not likely to
see a consistent growth in competitive cricketing nations, if the ICC continue
to drop the ball.

]]>England’s Fast Bowling Factoryhttps://sportsgazette.co.uk/englands-fast-bowling-factory/
Fri, 14 Jun 2019 22:30:21 +0000https://sportsgazette.co.uk/?p=17424A fearsome spell of fast bowling represents one of the most
electric passages of play on a cricket field.

A side’s necessity for out and out pace bowlers is arguably
at its most potent in the era of one-day batting dominance.

With the Cricket World Cup underway, England’s Jofra Archer
has grabbed headlines for his quick, hostile and effective short balls and Michael
Vaughan, amongst other pundits, considers him an automatic selection for the
upcoming Ashes series.

Certainly, Australia have long had the upper-hand over the
‘poms’ in this arena.

Granted, the quicker, harder Australian pitches naturally
make pace a more fruitful commodity down under. England have experienced the
likes of Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins at their
unplayable best in recent Ashes series, and are in desperate need to retaliate
in kind.

SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND – JUNE 14 : Jofra Archer of England bowls during the ICC Cricket World Cup Group Match between England and the West Indies at the Hampshire Bowl on June 14, 2019 in Southampton, England. (Photo by Philip Brown/Popperfoto via Getty Images)

The oft-injured Mark Wood and the newly available Archer
represent England’s brightest hope of closing the gap to the Aussies in the
quicks department.

With a view to the future, how are England’s counties
maximising the potential of up and coming young pacemen?

Sean Hunt, 17, has recently debuted for Surrey’s second
team. Well built and standing at 6’5, Sean projects an intimidating presence to
and from the crease.

Sharing insight into his own development with Surrey, he explains
England’s glaring need for fast bowlers:

“I think having serious pace in the game today is so
important – just look at England’s recent efforts in Australia – batsmen get
scared and feel rushed by fast bowling.

“In my opinion, the key to bowling serious wheels is having
a smooth run up and action, it all comes down to rhythm. Personally, I’ve been
working on running in a bit quicker but trying to stay smooth to add
consistency to my bowling – as well as a few extra yards of pace.

“You have to bowl with intent to hit someone or unsettle
them.”

The aforementioned Archer epitomises the smooth run up and
action Sean alludes to, boasting a high wrist position and using his strong,
locked front leg as a base to seemingly effortlessly deliver the ball.

Archer, who averages 23 in first class cricket, certainly
has all the tools to succeed with the red ball.

As the World Cup weather fluctuates, seamers will become
more and more useful on green-top wickets. Liam Plunkett’s thus far excellent
performances when called upon have given selectors a headache when it comes to
England’s bowling unit.

RADLETT, ENGLAND – MAY 27: Sean Hunt of Surrey U18s bowls against Middlesex U18s in the ECB National Competition on May 27, 2018 in Radlett, England. (Photo by Sarah Ansell/Getty Images).

The importance of bowlers’ capabilities with the bat can be
such a key determining factor when splitting hairs for selection, as Sean
explains:

“Everyone these days needs to be able to bat. If you’re on
par with another player’s bowling, the coaches look straight to batting and
fielding prowess.

“The bat is vital for me at the moment – if I keep improving
and gain more and more time out in the middle, I know I’ll become an
indispensable member of the sides I represent.”

Becoming a three-dimensional cricketer is now the set
standard for young players looking to make an impactful mark on the game – Sam
Curran’s rise through the ranks as a wonderfully promising all-rounder is a
journey today’s youngsters can seek to emulate.

However, with more coaches now aiming to bolster England’s
fast bowling ranks in particular, the Aussies will soon undoubtedly be looking
over their shoulder.